That’s Michael J. States’s greeting to applicants after they’ve been accepted at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Forget the thick envelope. A successful applicant to many top law and business schools can expect to learn the news via a call from the dean. The cynical explanation: applicants get more excited about enrolling when they get a call on their cellphones instead of an admittance letter, and that improves a school’s selectivity numbers. The warm and fuzzy reason: admissions offices are responding to digital depersonalization. ...

So with the rise of the Internet, deans at institutions like Harvard, Yale, Emory and the Berkeley and Los Angeles branches of the University of California have made thousands of phone calls a year just to say welcome. (Hat Tip: Michael Solimine.)

[Dean] Don't be shy, just take your time ...I'd like to get to know youI'd like to make you mineI've been waiting, standing here so patientlyFor you to come over [and make the offer to me]And my number is Beechwood 4-5789